Hey Man, well this is Babylon

Just a small handful of things spring to mind in review of this week. Two nights ago I started up a new Fallout 3 game, this time with the intention of playing it like a true Wastelander. That means: not hoarding every single thing I find back in my locker at Megaton, foraging as I go, using only the weapons I can scavenge and maintain as I go, dropping what I can’t carry, and leaving small caches of equipment stashed here and there. This time my name is Shrike, a no-nonsense tough bitch from Vault 101, self-proclaimed protector of Megaton and its environs following the unfortunate violent death of its previous sheriff, the late Lucas Simms¹.

So far, my quest has been well-fought but hard-won. I’ve lost a few circumstantial allies on occasion, including a poor scavenger who got caught in the crossfire when those no-good Talon Merc goons jumped me, but thankfully, word is getting out: Shrike’s gunning for the bad guys, and the bad guys be scared. Just last night I donned my favorite leather jacket², pumped myself up on Buffout and MedX, and took out an entire clutch of nasty Raiders using only a Louisville Slugger I had affectionately named Pablo. I barely had time to catch my breath as I led my assault, needing to take them out with as much celerity as possible so as to maximize the effectiveness of my chemically-skyrocketed battle prowess. I charged through their compound – one insultingly forged out of the ruins of an old elementary school – and wiped their filthy souls from the planet with minimal injury. Then I slept off my wounds in their own beds, dragged their bodies into a central heap, peed on their dead leader’s corpse, and set them all ablaze with their own flamethrower before leaving the next morning.

I fucking hate Raiders.

What’s next for Shrike? Word is there’s some “family” of villains terrorizing the poor nearby settlement of Arefu. An easy-on-the-eyes dame named Lucy ain’t seen or heard from her folks up there in quite some time. As the new sheriff of these parts, I reckon it’s ’bout time I let these cheeky bastards know who’s now in charge ’round here. Time to go give this family a taste of the Baseball Bat o’ Justice. Pablo’s a close talker, a real social type.

This past Monday night saw another session of my weekly Savage Worlds game. I’ve become a bit slack with this game, owing in no small part to the increasing difficulty of me running games on Monday nights. This campaign’s days are acknowledgedly numbered, but thankfully this most recent session really got my blood pumping again. I eagerly await the ending few sessions of the series, in part because gaming on Mondays is takings its toll on me, but mostly because I really want to know what happens next. The beauty of running this game largely from the seat of my pants is that when it gets me, it really gets me, and I’m as eager to know the future as the players are. I’ll wait a few more sessions before I post things in detail, though.

I’ll end this post with a little idea: Iron Kingdoms, done with Warhammer FRP 3rd Edition. I think it would rock.

Footnotes

¹ PS: thanks for the bitchin’ coat and hat, Luke. RIP
² Tunnel Snakes rule! *shove*

I started re-reading Neuromancer last night for my first ever re-read. I’d forgotten how just plain good this book is. My original goal was to get myself back in the cyberpunk mindset for my new Shadowrun Monday-night game, but after only a page in I had become truly immersed in the prose all for the sake of its own qualities. Gibson is one helluva phrase-turner, to say the least. To this day, Neuromancer has the single most memorable opening line out of every book I’ve ever read (see post title)*. Every time I think of this book and those that followed it, that opening line resonates in my brain, spoken by Ron Perlman in the same style as the famous opening lines to every Fallout game. While I personally feel that the Bridge Trilogy was a better-written series than the Cyberpunk trilogy, Neuromancer still stands out in my memory as one of the best and most original books I’ve ever read. The re-read is highly enjoyable so far. Read more

I’d like to showcase a house rule that I’ve started using in all my Savage Worlds campaigns. It’s called the “Monkey Knife Fight.” My buddy Chris showed me this simple and fun time-wasting game a while back, and I’ve found that with a little bit of tweaking to the original method it works exceptionally well in combat for those times when groups of mooks and henchmen are fighting one another (usually while the main PCs are engaged in their own fights). Here’s how it works:

1. Count the number of fighters on each side, and set a single die down for each fighter. The die should equal their relative combat skill die (Fighting or Shooting).
2. Each side rolls all their dice at once. For each die that rolls a 4 or higher, remove the smallest die from your opponent’s dice pool. For each die that rolls a 1, remove that die from your own dice pool.
3. Repeat each round until one side wins or retreats, or the combat is otherwise resolved.

Should the story’s direct focus ever actually move to either side of this conflict, however, it is then handled as per normal rules. Meaning, if it ever actually becomes important to handle the combat with a more hands-on method, then by all means, abandon the Monkey Knife Fight and roll the dice as normal.

This weekend, I met with a handful of players to discuss creating the setting for a new campaign.  I sent out some feelers last month about a new campaign idea, in which we meet once a month, and each time we meet we play for 8+ hours.  I was glad with the number of interested responses, and after getting some initial arrangements set up, we had our first session of setting design and basic character planning this past Saturday evening.

The basic format of the campaign was the only thing laid out initially: all the characters are crewing a large high seas sailing vessel in a “fantasy” world, sent on an extended voyage by one or more major financial and/or governmental interests.  Each character will have their own personal agenda in addition to whatever missions serve as the driving purpose of the voyage as a whole.  That being laid down, we put our brains together and designed the specifics of the setting itself, with each player having equal say over aspect they desired or wanted to avoid.  I was extremely pleased and impressed at how well we all worked together.  The absolutely wonderful results of our design session are outlined below. Read more

I’m currently playing catch-up on my logs of the new “Strangelight!” campaign. It’s set in the Iron Kingdoms, and uses the Savage Worlds rules. I’ve already posted the premise of the campaign elsewhere, so I’ll save the internet a tiny bit of space by not re-posting it here.

We made the characters way back around the end of November, but only just recently started actually playing the game, as the holidays and various familiar commitments prevented us from being able to meet again after character creation.

• Drake as “Mishka Starov,” a Kossite ex-Widowmaker who deserted the army after seeing many ghostly visions of his possible future deaths
• Emma as “Rosalynd Hutch,” a Caspian Arcane Mechanik, recently graduated from the Mechanikal Studies school of Corvis University
• Robert as “Gregory Vascalho,” a Tordoran ex-watchman, fired for sticking his nose in places where the bureaucracy felt it didn’t belong
• Robin as “Captain Branduff Scully,” a Thurian river smuggler in search of his missing eye, which was stolen along with half of his soul by a wicked imp
• Ryan as “Quinlan Bralazzi,” a Rynnish Noble Wizard with a secret hobby of Infernalism and a sour attitude toward his lessers

In our first session (four or so weekends ago), we introduced all of the five main protagonists. All of them had been contacted through various means by a wealthy Magi from Five Fingers named Unger von Grendelbach. The Magi had recently acquired franchising permission from the Ceryl-based Strangelight Workshop, which focuses its efforts on the investigation and sometimes eradication of supernatural hauntings. Von Grendelbach sought out the five characters for his own reasons, and all of them accepted his offer. Read more

In this post I talk about changes to Cannibal Contagion, I rave about the awesome game session from last night’s group gathering, and I review Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy.

On Cannibal Contagion

I thought about it pretty heavily over the weekend, and today I finalized my decision to remove the “Samurai Slaughterfest” bit from the name of Cannibal Contagion. This has kinda been nagging me for a while now, but didn’t jump into my mind full-focus until I found my original design document for the game over the weekend. There are a lot of initial ideas from that document that never made it into the current vision of the game, or that I’m holding onto for a lot more testing and possible release in an expansion – meaning, a whole lot of extraneous add-on kinda stuff. Read more

Let’s start with the quickies, and then we’ll talk gaming:

Reading: RunePunk
Wearing: Comfortable close-fitting clothes suitable for cycling. I love this weather.
Planning: The first session for the Sky Pirates game, this Sunday
Playing: Rule of Rose and Skies of Arcadia
Not Playing: The Siren: Blood Curse demo. Laaaaaaaaame. Tried it last night, and seriously, what’s with these crap-looking games not making the most of their platform’s hardware specs?
Writing: Some notes for various game design projects, mostly an Art List for the Cannibal Contagion book.
Listening: Pimsleur Spanish I
Watching: The Wire, Season 4. Man, the end of Season 3 almost brought tears to my eyes. One of the things that gets me the most is seeing people fail when they’ve worked so goddamned hard to succeed.
Anticipating: Dead Space in October. Read more

What a weekend!

Good Times (anytime you need a favor!)

Friday night Avatar: good times! Thanks for bringing over those episodes, Trinity. I’m glad you’re finally getting to see Season 3. Soon you will understand why I love Zuko so much! And thanks for Skies of Arcadia Legends, Andrea. I’m enjoying it greatly. Plus, it’s good inspirational fodder for the Sky Pirates game (further below). Also, Bethany picked up a copy of No More Heroes for the Wii, and so far, it’s pretty sweet. My one complaint: so far, I don’t notice any strategy in it. There’s several things you can do in it when facing enemies, but mainly it seems that the “hit A repeatedly to beat them down” strategy is really the best tactic. Regardless, it’s bloody and brutal and lots of fun. Read more

Yesterday I proposed a new game idea to my group: Let’s build a city, populate it together, then play in it. My basic idea was a city called Torch, with a very flame-focused motif in the common nomenclature of the city and its populace. The idea took hold, and we all threw some ideas around to give it more life. Here’s what we have so far: Read more

The Savage Worlds License is now free.

Specifically:

For Publication

If you want to sell your work, you must contact us at PEGShane@gmail.com with your plan and some samples of your work. We’ll work with each company on a case-by-case basis. Once we grant your company the license, you can make whatever you want without submitting it for further approval, as long as you follow the guidelines below.

There is no fee for this license.

Oh. Wow. Awesome.